. Promise?"

Danny, his eyes stinging with tears because somehow he could sense he
would never see Uncle Averill again, had said that he promised.

"... to my nephew, Danny Jones," the lawyer was reading. "So, you see,
you'll have to go right down there and look the thing over. Naturally,
I'll have to leave the house while you do so and I won't be able to
return until you tell me I can--"

"But why?"

"Weren't you listening?"

"I guess I was thinking about my uncle."

"Well, the clause says you're to examine the machine alone, with no one
else in the house. It's perfectly legal. If that's what your uncle
wanted, that's what he'll get. Are you all set?"

Danny nodded and Tartalion shook his hand solemnly, then left the room.
Danny heard the lawyer's footsteps receding, heard the front door open
and close, heard a car engine start. Then, slowly, he walked through the
living room of his dead uncle's house and across the long, narrow
kitchen and to the basement stairs. His hands were very dry and he felt
his heart thudding. He was nervous, which surprised him.

* * * * *

But why? he thought, why should it surprise me? All my life, Uncle
Averill's basement has been a mystery. Let's face it, Danny-boy, you
haven't exactly had an adventurous life. Maybe Uncle Averill was the
biggest adventure in it, with his secret machine and strange
disappearances. And maybe Uncle Averill did a good selling job when you
were small, because that machine means mystery to you. It's probably not
much more than a better mousetrap, but you want to believe it is, don't
you? And you're nervous because the way Uncle Averill kept you and
anyone else away from his basement when you were a kid makes it a kind
of frightening place, even now.

He opened the basement door with a key which the lawyer had given him.
Beyond the door were five steps and another door--this one of metal. It
had had a time lock in the old days, Danny remembered, but the lock was
gone now. The metal door swung ponderously, like the door to a bank
vault, and then Danny was on the other side. It was dark down there, but
faint light seeped in through small high windows and in a few moments
Danny's eyes grew accustomed to the gloom.

The basement was empty except for what looked like a big old steamer
trunk in the center of the dusty cement floor.

Danny was disappointed. He had childhood visions of an intricate maze
of machinery clutteri